Many of us have ever asked ourselves the following: what does the interviewer think and feel when he faces and interacts with each of the candidates for a vacant position? In other words, is it possible for the interviewer to remain neutral or objective at all times? As you might expect, given complex human nature, absolute impartiality does not exist. So let's analyze what happens inside the interviewer's mind.
A long time ago, a phenomenon typical of the human mind called categorization was established among psychologists. To understand it we must remember that the world around us is vast and extremely diverse in its manifestations.
And even when human capacities are highly powerful to capture and interact with this environment, a curious phenomenon occurs in each one of us. Given the multiplicity of the environment, the human being tends to simplify or group everything around him, establishing for himself, in this way, a series of categories of what he likes, what he dislikes, what interests him and what he prefers to discard.
In other words, we all simplify the world into a series of drawers or compartments. And when we stumble upon something new instantly and unconsciously we place it in one of those imaginary sections of our mind.
This mechanism saves us work and allows us to respond immediately to the unknown. While it is a useful psychological tool, it can also lead to excess.
It happens that, due to the aforementioned reasons, when the interviewer meets the candidate almost automatically examines him from a series of psychological parameters supported only in superficial samples of the applicant's behavior.
Some of these would be:
Its appearance: That is, it is repaired in the external appearance of the other person. Her face, her attractiveness, her height, her complexion, her skin color, her clothing, etc.
Their language: Specifically, their good or bad command of the language, their idioms when speaking, their regional accent and their richness or poverty of vocabulary.
Their level of education: Evidenced by their level of studies and by their social behavior.
His social behavior: That is, his manners, his way of behaving before other people, his tone of voice, his body language, his poise or self-confidence, if he looks at his interlocutor, etc.
Your place of residence: Where in the city or country does this person live? Are you coming from a residential area or an old, populous and run-down neighborhood?
Their socio-economic origin: This refers to the place that the person occupies on the social scale. This is largely revealed by the last 4 features examined above.
We said before that this phenomenon, categorization, although it is useful to save us mental work, has its danger or negative side and this is summarized in one word, PREJUDICE. When we get carried away by our beliefs and don't confront them with real evidence that could perhaps change them, we are judging in advance and without foundation. And this is harmful when it comes to facts and people.
The prejudice becomes more effective in societies with increasing internal migration to their main cities or in countries with high rates of foreigners or their descendants.
The most serious thing is that sometimes you hire a person towards whom you have prejudices. A surprising statistic reveals that obese or overweight men and women in companies in the United States are paid less than their colleagues for doing exactly the same job.
Every interviewer must be aware of our intrinsic tendency to categorize events and people, that is, to pigeonhole them in a certain way. So powerful is this tendency that it is said that the interviewer decides whether or not the candidate will proceed to another stage of the selection process in just the first 5 minutes of the interview.
